The OpenPBR repository is now publicly available on GitHub! First announced in August as part of the Academy Software Foundation’s Open Source Days program, OpenPBR is a subproject of MaterialX, and provides an artist-friendly new open source shading model to bridge the gap from one software package to another.
Developed by Autodesk and Adobe with guidance from MaterialX, OpenPBR (which stands for Open Physically-Based Rendering) will be the successor to Autodesk Standard Surface and Adobe Standard Material, with both companies focusing their development efforts on OpenPBR moving forward. As an open standard for representing rich material and look development content in computer graphics, MaterialX enables artists to describe materials in a common, networked form, providing assets with a consistent look across renderers and platforms. OpenPBR aims to build upon MaterialX by providing a description of how an artist will interface with the physical properties of the surface they’re creating, giving artists a more specific interface to work within, and the ability to transfer data back and forth between assets with very little conversion needed.
This public launch is a pre-production release, with the goal to solicit real-world testing and feedback from the broader community. The OpenPBR team is working toward a v1.0 launch in 2024, which will build a reference implementation for OpenPBR integrated within MaterialX – meaning that anything that already supports MaterialX will automatically support OpenPBR, with no need for teams to build their own implementations. Community input will be crucial in OpenPBR’s continued development. Users are encouraged to share their feedback directly with the OpenPBR team via the Academy Software Foundation’s #OpenPBR Slack channel.
“One of the things that the Academy Software Foundation really facilitates is the ability for us to have these open conversations and collaboration across the entire community,” shared Jonathan Stone, Lead Rendering Engineer for Lucasfilm’s Advanced Development Group and the Lead Developer of MaterialX. “Our early discussions to this point have already been a big success, and we’re excited to bring in more perspectives from across the industry with this public release.”
To learn more about OpenPBR, you can watch the recording of the MaterialX Virtual Town Hall during Open Source Days. Also, stay tuned for details on an upcoming webinar on OpenPBR planned for December.
